Basketball Wives L.A. – Episode 4 – Crazy On The Fun Side

The queen has spoken.
When Jackie Christiedoes something, she doesn’t do it half-assed. So when she prepares a pool party to reunite with the girls and hopefully win Gloria‘s friendship back, she wakes up at four in the morning to prepare, she writes cards to each individual woman with a personal note, she displays framed photos of each of the girls on the buffet table and then takes a photo of the photos like some M.C. Escher infinite loop of friend-mania, and sits by the pool to wait for them. That’s dedication, in a really, really specific way.
“She had pictures of us. Like, what the hell?…I got chills a little bit,” Draya asks. Draya’s annoyed with Jackie right off the bat because she was supposed to be the organizer of this party, but Jackie defied her requests to plan and went ahead and called up Gloria to invite her directly. Draya tells Jackie “It was like you didn’t trust me when I told you ‘I got it.'” But regardless of who invited Gloria, the important thing (to Jackie, at least) is that Gloria decided to come.
She andBrooke arrive together, and it’s a miracle they get there in one piece because they are walking smack in the middle of the street with no regard for traffic.
But they do arrive, and Jackie could not be more thrilled.
“I gave Gloria a hug and it was a nice hug, it was a reception. And that was all I needed to see. I said okay, we’re getting back where we needed to be,” Jackie explains.

Draya and Jackie’s issue seems to subside for the time being, but the drama doesn’t end there. Brooke points out “Draya, I haven’t seen you since the King shoot,” which is the photo session that they both attended but Draya walked out because she didn’t want to work on an open set. Brooke proceeds to tell the rest of the ladies that Draya walked off the set that day and Draya defends herself explaining “NO girl was supposed to be there,” so don’t take it personally, Brooke! “J.Lo ain’t shooting with everybody!” Draya continues.
“But that’s J.Lo,” Brooke says. “And I’m Draya,” comes the rebuttal. And that’s that. Draya is the J.Lo of this show, even though Brooke is the one with the J and B (jugs and booty, remember?).

“It was just really awkward,” Brooke explains, but Draya has her own set of rules and regulations that she abides by when she works, so she and Brooke have to agree to disagree on this one.

The focus turns back to Jackie who brings out the cards she’s written for the girls, and one by one they read what she’s written. (They’re all short and sweet, for instance, Draya’s reads “Thank you, girl, just for doing you, Love, Jackie. P.S. We have a lot on common LOL.”) So they’re not War And Peace, but they make everyone feel feelings. They’re not all great feelings, but they’re feelings.
“It’s really nice. Had somebody else done it, I would be like, oh, how sweet. But since it’s Jackie I’m like, oh, what the hell?” Laura says, because in her mind, a card can’t repair the damage Jackie’s done.
“The girls reactions to the cards weren’t as big as I was hoping for,” Jackie says disappointedly. “Basically, I blame Draya for this,” she continues, implying that Draya set a bad tone for the day to start with. And with that, a new beef begins.

Malaysia has a surprise for us this week, she’s decided that her next career challenge is to try her hand at voiceover work. So she goes to a vocal coach for training and a V.O. session and after some constructive criticism, it’s clear she’s frustrated but still up for the challenge.
More than anything, it’s an exercise in breaking out of her shell and trying something out of her comfort zone. Not that she’s cast Three Beats, her jewelry line aside. She and her artner Jason have also been working hard on a women’s line of her formerly-just-for-kids jewelry line, and they plan to launch that, too.

Draya and Brooke chat one on one to discuss the awkward photo shoot situation again, because Draya was annoyed that it was brought up in front of anyone, and Brooke was annoyed that Draya acted like a big shot at the shoot. Neither of them are wrong, exactly, and they manage to work things out.
Draya likes a closed set for her friendships as much as her photo shoots and she tells Brooke that anytime there’s static between them, take it one on one before airing it out to the girls. And Brooke can handle that.

Speaking of photo shoots, Jackie has a shoot she’s posing for too.
The photos are followed by an interview, and as she’s chatting, Laura walks in.

Jackie has wanted to have more one on one time with the girls because she still feels ganged up on in a group setting, and she confides in Laura that she thinks Malaysia and Draya change when they get into a group and are meaner than they are when they’re alone with her.
“I learned that Jackie is the same person she was, just with a twist,” Laura says after hearing Jackie’s conspiracy theories. Laura tells Jackie she’s bored by the whole topic because Jackie is harping on things she needs to let go of, so Jackie asks her when she became so much holier than thou. Laura does not agree with that description.
But Laura does worry that Jackie is just a ticking time bomb who will explode at any moment. It’s just a matter of time.

Jackie invites Brooke out to get to knew her a little better, and Brooke so far is receiving Jackie with an open mind. She explains that she’s heard plenty of stories about how crazy Jackie is, but in her view, Jackie is “Crazy, on the fun side.” Jackie might be trying to mold Brooke to be on her side, but she unleashes her disappointment of the other girls onto Brooke who starts to commiserate and reassure her that that’s just what happens with women. But Jackie is convinced it’s more than that, and everyone is still just jealous of her.
“Brooke and I hit it off just fine,” Jackie says, presumably because Brooke is not (yet) a jealous, catty heifer.

Bambi is back! Malaysia’s friend from childhood who may or may not have a beef with Brooke has reappeared and she’s in L.A. for the time being and wants to meet Malaysia’s friends. Even though it would sound like the only person she knows of thus far is Brooke, she has definitely heard tale of Laura, who was the one Malaysia fought with last season and who Bambi holds a grudge against already.
It’s all for nothing because Laura and Bambi hot it off when they meet, but Bambi lays it out there about her situation with Brooke, telling Laura about Brooke’s supposed jealousy over a guy they both knew. “I’m just hearing that she don’t like me,” Bambi says. “So I’m like aw, s—, I don’t like you either!”

Later, Laura tells Malaysia she’s been upset lately because she feels like there’s a rift in her relationship with Gloria, which is a development we didn’t expect. Laura’s been bummed out for a while about this, but Malaysia tells her to get on it and have a talk because that’s not a relationship anyone can afford to lose. Come on ladies! You’re the only legit sisterhood on the show, don’t mess it up!

Jackie finally has it out with Draya over the way Draya behaved at her pool party. “It all boils down to her not respecting me,” Draya says, but Jackie doesn’t care about respect, she cares about who started s— at her party. “You were the s– -starter that day,” she tells Draya, and, forgive me if I say this in every episode but “THINGS GO DOWNHILL FROM THERE.”
Jackie calls her rude and she calls the rest of the group “childish little girls” and “little chickens” for behaving the way they did at her house, then she says something about being in the car going to a red carpet event in Beverly Hills that, as far as I know, has nothing to do anything we’re aware of. Draya calls her delusional and wishes someone, anyone, was there to witness Jackie saying all of this to her, and then she walks out. Luckily, there were cameras there. We all saw it. We get it, Draya. We totally get it.